links for 2008-09-18

Shortly after Tesla held a press conference Wednesday morning touting its $250 million planned plant in San Jose, Calif., Tesla chairman Elon Musk presented his vision of Tesla’s leadership role in the auto industry at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference. Musk said that Tesla has the ability to accelerate the auto industry’s progress toward the adoption of electric vehicles by 5 to 10 years. Lighting even that small fire could be very important if you consider what a decade of delay can do for climate change, he said.

A year ago, financial companies were flying high. But as problems in the mortgage and credit markets have grown, the stocks of many Wall Street firms have been hard hit. Some of the biggest companies have been bought out, taken over by the government or gone bankrupt.